08 Saturday Jan 2022
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In honor and memory of the boys of our ward who served in World War II
Monument erected by Hanksville M.I.A.
Located at approximately 40 West Main Street in Hanksville, Utah
16 Thursday Sep 2021
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This monument erected in honor of these pioneer men and their families who on September 15, 1856 founded the first white settlement in Cache Valley then known as Maughan’s Fort now known as Wellsville, Utah
Peter Maughan
Mary Ann Weston Maughan
Charles W. Maughan
Hyrum Maughan
Willard Maughan
George W. Bryan
Zial Riggs
Emeline Knox Riggs
Egbert Z. Riggs
Celia K. Riggs
Robert K. Riggs
Delia K. Riggs
John Maughan
Sarah M. Davenport Maughan
Sarah A. Maughan
Mary A. Maughan
William H. Maughan
Barbara Morgan Maughan
Ruth M. Maughan
Francis W. Gunnell
Polly Ann Edwards Gunnell
Francis C. Gunnell
Sarah E. Gunnell
O. D. Thomson
Dedicated Founders Day, 1931
Located at the chapel at 30 South Center Street in Wellsville, Utah
05 Friday Oct 2018
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Icelandic Memorial
See also: First Icelandic Settlement in USA
Rock From Iceland
Many Icelandic converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were baptized on the shores of Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland, at what is called the “Mormon Pond.” This rock was removed from those shores on May 6, 2005 and brought to Spanish Fork. It stands as a symbol of the commitment, courage, and sacrifice of those who left to their posterity a legacy of faith, perseverance, and endurance.
Two natives of Iceland, Porarinn Halfidason and Gudmunder Gudmundsson, met two Mormon missionaries from Utah while studying in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1851. After careful investigation, they converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They returned to their homeland to share their newfound faith. In 1852 Porarinn drown at sea. Gudmunder carried on the proselyting activities. Many converts were baptized on the shore of Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland.
In 1854 Samuel Bjarnson and his wife, Margret Gisladottir, and a traveling companion, Helga Johndottir, were the first converts to leave Iceland for Zion. They sailed from Iceland in November of 1854 to Liverpool, England, on the ship James Nesmith. From England, they continued on to New Orleans where they boarded a riverboat headed to St. Louis, Missouri. After passing through Mormon Grove, the group arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley on September 7, 1855, 300 days after their departure from Iceland. Brigham Young, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, directed Samuel, Margret, and Helga to settle in Spanish Fork, Utah. With a nucleus of 16 pioneers the first permanent Icelandic settlement in the United States was established in Spanish Fork.
Prior to 1869, Icelanders made the trip to Utah by sailing on ships, traveling in wagon trains, and pulling handcarts. After that time, they traveled to Utah by steamship and train. Over 400 Icelanders immigrated to Utah from 1855 to 1914. Because the pioneers had very little money to help themselves or others, they found it necessary to work together as they settled in their new homes. In 1887 the Icelanders in Spanish Fork held their first Iceland Days Celebration, Kate B. Carter wrote, “The Iceland people in Utah are said to have preserved the folk-lore and customs of their mother country more than any other nationality that pioneered in Utah.”
In 1887 the Icelandic members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built a meetinghouse where they conducted church services in Icelandic because many of them found it difficult to learn English. In 1892 the Icelandic Lutherans of Spanish Fork built a small frame church where the sermons were taught in Icelandic and English. Runolfur Runolfsson, who had joined the LDS Church in Iceland and immigrated to Spanish Fork, converted to Lutheranism after his arrival, he had been an ordained Lutheran minister in Iceland.
In 1938 a Lighthouse Monument honoring the Incelanders that settled in Utah was built on the east bench of Spanish Fork at 800 East and Canyon Road. Andrew Jensen, a historian for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, dedicated the monument on August 2, 1938, as part of the Iceland Days celebration. J. Victor Leifson and Eleanor B. Jarvis were co-chairs for the monument project. Gesli Bearnson donated the land and John K. Johnson designed the monument in the shape of a lighthouse, reflecting the seafaring background of the Icelanders. Fred Wilson built the original Viking ship on the monument.
The centennial celebration of the first Icelanders coming to Utah was held on June 15-17, 1955. Elder Henry D. Moyle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opened the celebration as a keynote speaker during a religious service on Wednesday, June 15. The celebration included a parade and concluded on Friday, June 17, a national holiday in Iceland. The Iceland Association, in 2000, raised funds to build a monument in Vestmannaeyjar to honor their ancestors, along with an exhibit in Hofsos, Iceland.
Byron T. Geslison, his wife, Melva and their two sons, David and Daniel, were called to Iceland in 1975 to renew the missionary effort of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When the Geslisons arrived in Iceland there were no missionary discussions or tracts in Icelandic. Byron had the voice of warning and truth, written by Thordur Didriksson in 1879, re-printed to use as a missionary tract. The Icelandic government officially recognized The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on November 1, 1983.
In 1997 the centennial celebration of Iceland days was held in Spanish Fork. Iceland’s President, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, and his wife, Gudrun Katrin Porbergsdottir, attended the event. President Grimsson was honored by Spanish Fork City as the Grand Marshal of the Fiesta Days Parade on July 24. President Grimsson and Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spoke at a pioneer heritage fireside. The Icelandic Association of Utah was formed in 2000, as a non-profit corporation. A sesquicentennial celebration was held on June 23-26, 2005, 150 years after the first Icelanders arrived in Utah.
16 Sunday Sep 2018
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Sugar House Monument
Sugar House Monument
Erected in recognition of the first effort made to manufacture beet sugar in Western America.
With dauntless perseverance through severe hardships the machinery was brought from Liverpool, Eng. To this place, where in 1853 the sugar mill was constructed.
May the spirit of this courageous venture continue to characterize this community.
The Old Sugar House
Home of one of the earliest efforts toward the creation of local industry in Utah.
At these crossroads in 1853-55, a structure was erected which stood for many years as a symbol of pioneer enterprise and courage. Its site was approximately two hundred feet east of this spot.
After the sugar project was abandoned, the old mill served many other useful purposes. Its life ended in 1928.
The Sugar House Mill: How Sugar House Got Its Name
This section of Parley’s Creek contributed to the creation of Sugar House as a thriving business district. Water from the creek powered a sugar mill near the corner of Highland Drive and 2100 South, which ultimately gave Sugar House its name. The mill was built in 1854 by pioneers hoping to produce white sugar from beets. The mill soon failed and by 1856 had been converted to the first paper mill successfully operated in the west. At one time, the Sugar Mill housed a machine shop for the Salt Lake and Utah Central Railway. It was later used as offices for Bamberger Coal Company until it was torn down in 1928.
S.U.P. Marker #39, Jordan & Salt Lake City Canal is located here too.
Related:
The Sugar House Monument, built in 1930, is significant under Criterion A as a local landmark and the center of the Sugar House business district. The work reflects the cohesiveness of the merchants of the Sugar House business district as it was initially commissioned by the Sugar House Business Men’s League and renovations to it were spearheaded by the Sugar House Business and Professional Women’s Club. The monument was constructed in 1930 during the “A City Within A City, 1910-1954” context to commemorate the founders of the sugar beet industry in Utah. It is also significant under Criterion C as the outstanding work of a local sculptor, Millard Malin, combined with the design of the architectural firm of Anderson and Young. The fifty-foot high shaft retains its historic and architectural integrity and is being nominated as part of the multiple property submission, Sugar House Business District Multiple Resource Area. (*)
History of the Sugar House Monument
The plaza on which the monument stands was built in 1914 as 2100 South was realigned and Parley’s Creek was buried in conduit. It was reconstructed in 1927 by the city at a cost of $5,219. 7 The plan for a monument to be located on the plaza grew out of a suggestion made by Millard Malin, a sculptor, in 1928 to the Sugar House Business Men’s League that they erect a monument to “early Utah industry”8 on the plaza in Sugar House. He also presented a proposed two-foot high model for the statue to the group. The Sugar House Business League and the City of Salt Lake built the monument in 1930, following a competition to choose the winning design. The city share of the cost was $2,000.9 The plaza was dedicated on November 11, 1934.
The Sugar House Business and Professional Women’s Club, the Sugar House Chamber of Commerce and the Salt Lake City Commission joined together to clean up and maintain the monument and plaza in 1947. The clean up effort was part of Sugar House merchants’ efforts at beautification for the centennial of the original Mormon settlers entering Salt Lake City in 1847. The Salt Lake City Engineering Department cleaned the monument itself and replaced the wooden light poles at the ends of the plaza with ornamental steel ones as well as replacing curbs and gutters as needed.
The brass bas-relief plaque at the base of the monument on the north picturing the old sugar mill was added in 1948, using funds raised by the Sugar House Business and Professional Women’s Club. Malin’s original design had the sugar mill plaque on the north and one of fur trading at the Smoot trading post that was located on the site of the monument on the south. The south plaque was never finished.
The Artists
The sculptor of the monument, Millard Fillmore Malin, was born in Salt Lake City in 1891. He studied art at the University of Utah under Edwin Evans from 1914-1915 and later enrolled at the National Academy of Design in New York. He worked under Norman A. MacNeil from 1917-1918 on a sculpture of Ezra Cornell, which is located at Cornell University. He also assisted Gutzon Borglum on the Stone Mountain Memorial in Georgia. After his move back to Salt Lake City in 1923 he concentrated his work on monumental and architectural sculptures. His sculpture is realistic and he is considered one of Utah’s most outstanding sculptors.
His most famous work is the Sugar House Monument but he also completed other public sculptures in Utah. The Utah State Capitol building houses busts of two Native Americans of the Ute tribe, Unca Sam and Chief John Duncan, and a commemorative bronze plaque for the battleship Utah honoring the victims of the Pearl Harbor bombing. From 1950-1960 he completed baptismal fonts and other works for LDS 10 temples designed by Edward O. Anderson as LDS Church architect in Los Angeles; Bern, Switzerland; London, England, and New Zealand. The Dinosaur Monument located at the Utah Field House of Natural History in Vernal, Utah, was completed in 1964. Research astronomy was Malin’s avocation and he published three titles on gravity and the solar arrangement.
After winning the competition for the monument, Millard Fillmore Malin called in Edward Oliver Anderson and his partner, Lorenzo (Bing) Young, to collaborate on the design. 11 Malin and Anderson met while they were both at the University of Utah in 1914-15 and they became lifelong friends. Edward Oliver Anderson was also born in 1891. He was involved in many building projects for the LDS Church such as the Waycross Branch in Waycross, Georgia, the North Afton Ward in Afton, Wyoming, and the Bryan Ward in Salt Lake City. Anderson was the LDS Church Architect and also served on the board of temple architects. He designed the Idaho Falls Temple in 1945 with a team of four others. This temple design began the LDS Church post-war temple-building program that increasingly utilized standard plans. He also did the three-story London Temple in 1958.
Lorenzo Snow (Bing) Young was born in 1894 in Salt Lake City, a grandson of Brigham Young, the second president of the LDS Church. He was a graduate of Pratt Institute in New York and spent forty years practicing architecture in Salt Lake City. During his career he helped to design over 300 buildings including the new Marriott Library at the University of Utah; Olympus and Highland High Schools in Salt Lake City, and the Special Events Center at Brigham Young University. He was also a member of the LDS Church Board of Architects during the construction of the Los Angeles and Idaho Falls LDS temples. Before his death in 1968 he was a partner at Young and Fowler Associates.
Anderson and Young were partners for eight years from 1928 to 1936. During this time the firm of Anderson and Young designed and constructed buildings for the LDS Church in St. George and Richfield, Utah. Other examples of their work include the Granite Stake Tabernacle and Lincoln Ward on 2005 South 900 East in 1929 2 ; the Tudor Revival Milwaukee Ward in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and the Vernal First Ward in Vernal, Utah. A notable non-ecclesiastical public building of their design is Kingsbury Hall, the University of Utah Auditorium in Salt Lake City, built in 1928 (NR, 1978).
The monument is in a simplified Art Deco style that occurred in Utah primarily from 1930-1940. The ornamentation of the Art Deco style was influenced by the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs. The monument displays many Art Deco ornamental patterns, like the angular decorative geometric designs on the sides of the vertical shaft and the vertical molded patterns typical of the style. The carved Limestone bands that run horizontally along the north and south sides of the pool beds as well as two bands on the bottom section of the shaft, above the seated statues, have stylized plant and natural motifs. Malin describes the pattern used as “Double Sun.” It has a sego lily at the center and is surrounded by the sun with its corona, stars, planets and a crescent moon.
There are two massive bronze figures seated at the base facing east and west. The female figure to the east represents the fertility of the Salt Lake Valley and is modeled on Marjorie Lewis, a friend of the sculptor. The male figure is modeled on Max Croft, a stone worker who was found by the sculptor as he was heaving rocks to create the monument. He represents a mill builder and is pouring water from an urn over a wheel.
11 Wednesday Apr 2018
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1938 School Bus / Train Accident Memorial
Bus Passengers:
Deceased:
Survivors:
Tragedy Strikes Small Farming Communities
December 1, 1938 dawned as a snowy, foggy, eerily quiet day. While a school bus headed through the dense winter storm toward Jordan High School, a loaded Denver and Rio Grande freight train rolled north toward Salt Lake City. Near the railroad crossing at 10200 South and 400 West, the driver stopped the bus. He opened the door to look beyond the thick fog but did not see the 80+ car “Flying Ute” train approaching at over 50 miles per hour. At 8:43 a.m., the wet rubber tires of the bus strained up the gentle grade and pulled slowly forward across the tracks. Upon seeing the bus, the train crew immediately applied the brakes, but the collision was inevitable. The tragedy killed 23 children and the bus driver. The 15 survivors faced a lifetime of serious physical injuries and emotional scars. The devastation felt by all residents of the South Salt Lake Valley is impossible to describe in words alone. At the time, Jordan High was the only high school serving the present day boundaries from the Cottonwood Canyons to 8400 west, and Point of the Mountain to 6400 South. The impact and tragic loss left no family untouched. Every South Jordan home had lost a son, daughter, niece, nephew, cousin or friend.
Tragedy Draws National Attention
This bus/train accident sent the community and the nation into mourning while various religious, charitable and governmental organizations rallied to support the area. Local and national media coverage brought an outpouring of sympathy for the victims and their families. Business and governmental investigations combed through massive amounts of data to determine what practical improvements could be made to avoid similar catastrophes. Countless generations have benefited from railroad crossing laws and mechanical crossing arms. Often taken for granted is a mandatory requirement for bus drivers to not only stop at railroad crossings, but also to open their door and driver side window to look and listen for oncoming trains. Resulting from a disaster in this small Utah town, these national regulations are still in place today, making the loves of many school children much safer.
11 Wednesday Apr 2018
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South Jordan Veteran’s Memorial
Our lives are filled with symbolism. This monument, dedicated to those who served their country, is symbolic of sacrifice. May those who come here find peace, courage, and hope.
The circular form represents life and existence, the eternal qualities that surround and are a part of all mankind. “Honor, Pride and Pain” are defined by artist L’Dean Trueblood in her sculpture of two soldiers. In the service and sacrifice of war, it is that noble part of the soldier’s character that we honor.
The two soldiers stand as silent sentinels to those buried here. Whether under a blue sky with a warm, gentle summer breeze or the cold, damp, blustery darkness of a stormy winter night, the soldiers stand, unyielding to the elements until the day when these graves will be empty and Another will stand guard over all humanity. As if on an alter and as a statement of sacrifice, the dead are listed around the soldiers’ feet. Each soldier who gave his or her life in battle has a star in front of their name.
Below the names lies a reflecting pool, not of water, but polished black granite. The maps represent places where battles were fought and courage conquered fear. A circular field of earth tones surrounds the monument. Reds represent Mother Earth and the fact that we, the living, walk in freedom on the blood and sacrifice of many.
Polished black represents the area of the dead, where dignity should reside. The four white benches stand for the area of living – a place where mortality may return to find solace, comfort, or pay homage and respect for those who have sacrificed for us.
– Written by Joey Clegg –
Monument dedicated by Elder Boyd K. Packer, May 4, 2002
This monument is located in the Cemetery in South Jordan.
22 Thursday Mar 2018
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Erected by the members of the Woodruff Stake in honor of the Mormon Pioneers who passed this point on Wednesday July 7, 1847 and in subsequent years.
This monument is at the Lyman Rest Area just off Interstate 80.
18 Thursday Jan 2018
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“The Chosen One”
The day the angels came for you
Our tears, like summer showers, fell.
We knew your time on earth was through,
With heavy hearts, we sang farewell.
We thought we were the “Chosen Ones”
To show you all life’s little things,
To teach you to appreciate
A bird’s song, or a butterfly’s wings.
But now we humbly realize
By seeing all you struggled through
That, by example, we’ve been taught
The Chosen Teacher, here, was you!
-By Rose Jane Waterhouse
In Loving Memory of
William George Alan Waterhouse
Feb 10th – July 3rd, 2001
With the hope of
Bringing comfort to all who have lost
a “little one”.
Located in the Lehi City Cemetery in Lehi, Utah
10 Friday Feb 2017
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Sponsors: Sugar House Chapter Sons of Utah Pioneers and Emigration Canyon Historical Society, 2012
Location: Mouth of Emigration – Rotary Glen Park
There are five plaques associated with this monument:
Native People
In the beginning, nature appears to have made every effort to conceal this sacred place. Yet soaring above, the eagle has known of it since creation.
Thousands of years before this land was called America, Native Americans saw many uses for this respected canyon. The Ute, known as, People of the Land of the Sun or People of the Mountains considered this canyon a place of Great Power. To the west, the Salt Lake Valley was acknowledged as the Land of Peace between Nations. The Ute, Goshute, Navajo, Paiute & Shoshoni gathered food in the valley for the winter months.
Where we now walk there are stones we step upon, paths we follow, hills and mountains we climb, perhaps with thought only of our own journey. How often we hear, or say, how far we’ve walked, run or ridden. Look back 300 years, 600, a thousand – and more. The native people who lived and labored up and down this canyon were following game and foraging for food.
They were families living here. Each member was celebrated – from the elder sharing stories and wisdom, to a father’s successful hunt and a mother who taught what plants could be eaten or used as medicine. There was the joy of a birth. Small ones, who survived, were treasured children among them.
Those whose ancestors have arrived in the last few centuries, would do well to remember that we stand on land which was first respected, appreciated, loved and understood as beloved Mother Earth.
If we too, are to have future generations who look back and honor us, and this place, we must assist and value each other, our families and our near and distant communities.
May this place serve as a reminder that earlier visiting people passed where you now stand, with the acute awareness that they were treading on the sacred land of the Ute Nation.
Now we walk here. Let us walk with respect
This Monument is dedicated to the people of the Ute Nations
See other historic markers in the series on this page for SUP Markers.
DONNER-REED PARTY
“There are mental struggles which so absorb the being and soul that physical terror or tortures are unnoticed.” – C F McGlashan 1879
There are 27 canyons on the Eastern Bench of the Salt Lake Valley. Only two of which have an entrance and exit: Emigration Canyon and Parley’s Canyon to the south. For this reason, the Donner-Reed party made its way down this canyon. Eighty-seven men, women, children and 23 covered wagons were encouraged by the advice of Lansford W. Hastings and his suggestion of a shortcut westward to California of almost 400 miles.
Spending three weeks cutting a road to East Canyon, over Big Mountain and Little Mountain, the group arrived at this spot on August 22, 1846. From here, they set out for the mountains of Sierra Nevada not reaching them until November. High in the mountains, they became trapped by early, heavy snowfall, and their food supplies ran low. Stranded until help arrived in February 1847, some emigrants resorted to cannibalism to survive, eating those who had succumbed to starvation and sickness. Only 48 survived to reach California. It was one of the most spectacular tragedies in western migration.
MORMON PIONEERS
The Spirit of Gathering Called Us Here
Having been persecuted for their beliefs and driven from their homes in many states, the Mormon pioneers gathered in Winter Quarters, Nebraska. On April 16, 1847, thus began the “Mormon Migration” as their leader Brigham Young and a party of 148 headed westward to the Rocky Mountains. It was necessary to find an isolated area where they could permanently settle and practice their religion in peace. The movement of an entire people, religion, and culture ensued. This canyon played a pivotal part in the completion of the journey.
Arriving July 21, 1847 a small group of men explored this canyon passing this very place, where they entered the valley and planted the first crops. In the days following, others arrived, having survived the treacherous and slow decent through this canyon.
About noon on the 24th of July, 1847, Brigham Young and the last section of the party entered the valley. During the subsequent twenty-two years of the exodus, 60,000 saints would enter this valley. The length of the journey equaled the distance from Liverpool, England to the Salt Lake Valley at almost 7828 miles.
EXPLORERS – TRAPPERS – TRADERS
Only Native Indians inhabited what is now Utah prior to the 1700s. The exploring party of Escalante and Dominquez traveled 1800 miles to arrive to the south at Utah Lake in 1776, but never entered the Salt Lake Valley. This Great Basin area was first claimed by the Spanish as a Mexican Territory until the Mexican War (1846-1848).
In the 1820s and 1830s, Mountain Men and Trappers led lives that were dangerous and often down right miserable. Some ended in attacks by Natives or grizzly bears. But, during their short time here, many explored the canyons and surrounding areas.
Among the first white traders along this Wasatch Range was Etienne Provost known as the “Man of the Mountains”. Jim Bridger reached this basin too by traveling in a bull boat along what he thought was an arm of the Pacific Ocean because of the Great Salt Lake’s salinity. Other notables were Jedediah Smith, Thomas “Broken Hand” Fitzpatrick, Morris “Black” Harris, and Milton and William Sublete, as well as many others.
In 1843, explorer John C. Fremont made a great contribution with his detailed book on this canyon and the Great Basin. Accompanying him were Kit Carson, Tom Fitzpatrick and mapmaker Charles Preuss. In 1849, Howard Stansbury surveyed this area again.
“Emigration is a gate to the Salt Lake Valley, veiled in obscurity, and unknown to the citizens of the United States” – Solomon Carvalho 1852
MODERN DAY CANYON USES
“We reached the end of the canyon where it looked as though our wagons would have to be abandoned” – April 23, 1857, Joel Hills Johnson
Emigration Canyon rises 1400 feet in less than four miles making it a very treacherous and difficult descent into the valley. In 1849-1851, the Gold Rush in California brought 30,000 “Forty-Niners” down this canyon trail.
Utah War (May 1857-July 1858) saw 2000 militia defenders, the nations largest & most experienced, rushing up this canyon eastward to defend the city as 3500 Army troops, one third of the US Army, made their way down this canyon to stop a supposed rebellion by the Mormons against the US Government.
The Overland Freight and Mail services navigated this pass from 1849 until 1858. The Stage Coach era started in 1858, followed by the Pony Express Mail system in 1860-1861.
The first continental telegraph was connected on October 24, 1861 via a link which came down this canyon to Salt Lake. The first telegram sent by Governor Brigham Young to President Abraham Lincoln stated: “Utah has not seceded but is firm for the Constitution & laws of our once happy country”
The Canyon changed drastically in 1869 with the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory Point, Utah. This canyon then ceased to be the main gateway to the west.
(Note: The rail lines were joined at Promontory Summit, Utah, 50-miles north of Promontory Point, Utah.)
Laws enacted in 1869 led to development by farmers, ranchers and miners. It still has the largest number of residents of any canyon on the east bench. In 1873, the first wooden stave pipes carried water from this canyon to the city below.
Sheep-herders by the thousands used this canyon as a conduit to the surrounding mountains for grazing of the sheep.
Pioneers, craftsmen and laborers now quarried limestone, sandstone and timber from the canyon using the small gauge railroad from 1907-1917 to ferry goods & visitors in and out of the canyon.
This canyon boasted hotels, dance halls, a brewery, restaurants, religious retreats, stores, sundries and canyon grown vegetables & fruit. The first snow lifts wer installed; two ice skating rinks, even a golf course … all now long gone. Bikers, hikers and those who love the mountains now enjoy this historic canyon.
“The footsteps of thousands have marked the pathway of this historic canyon.” Robert W. Race & Stanley A. Fishler
HISTORIC EMIGRATION CANYON MONUMENT
Robert W. Race, Project Chairman
Stanley A Fishler, Co-Project Chairman
Sugarhouse Chapter – Sons of Utah Pioneers
Emigration Canyon Historical Society
A list of donors are displayed on the plaque.
29 Tuesday Nov 2016
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Tags
DUP, historic, Historic Buildings, Historic Homes, Historic Markers, LDS, LDS Church, Monuments, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, SUP, This Is The Place Heritage Park, utah
The location of the park is where, on July 24, 1847, Brigham Young first saw the Salt Lake Valley that would soon become the Mormon pioneers’ new home. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that Young had a vision shortly after they were exiled from Nauvoo, Illinois. In the vision, he saw the place where the Latter-day Saints would settle and “make the desert blossom like a rose” and where they would build their State of Deseret. As the account goes, Brigham Young was very sick with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and was riding in the back of a wagon. After exiting Emigration Canyon and cresting a small hill, he asked to look out of the wagon. Those with him opened the canvas cover and propped him up so he could see the empty desert valley below. He then proclaimed, “It is enough. This is the right place. Drive on.” The words, “this is the place,” were soon heard throughout the wagon train as the Mormon pioneers descended into the valley, their long journey having come to an end. The statement was first attributed to Young by Wilford Woodruff more than thirty years after the pioneer advent.
Over the next several years, tens of thousands of Mormon pioneers emerged from Emigration Canyon and first saw their new home from this same location. A Utah state holiday, Pioneer Day, occurs each year on July 24 to commemorate the Mormon pioneers’ entry into the valley.
See also:
For other State Parks in Utah visit this page. and for other parks in Salt Lake this page.